Print media, led by The Wall Street Journal, have
pointed out the many flaws in the Fannie Mae operation. A September
29 Journal piece said that investigators had found new accounting
violations, including evidence that the company may have overvalued
assets, underreported credit losses and misused tax credits

That report and others received no network news
attention. In the six months from April 5 to Oct. 5, 2005, the three
broadcast networks combined mentioned Fannie Mae just twice even
though the stock has dropped almost $30 billion in value during
2005. One of those reports was a passing mention of Fannie Mae
mortgages and the other was a spirited defense of the company by
liberal Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) complaining that you have the
administration in an ideologically driven attack on Fannie Mae and
Freddie Mac. In the June 12 report from This Week With George
Stephanopoulos, Frank went on to criticize free market
fundamentalism going after the two institutions that have done a
great deal to make the 30-year mortgage possible through the
secondary mortgage market.

Franks comments were an attempt to camouflage the
massive wrongdoings at Fannie Mae, including $10.8 billion in
overstated earnings and that doesnt count the new accounting
problems. During the six months that the networks ignored the firm,
it has been the subject of congressional hearings, appointed a new
chief executive and twice failed to meet deadlines for its earnings
reports. In addition, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan warned that the
size of Fannie Mae posed a threat to the economy.

None of that was aired on the network news shows.

This is consistent with findings of an April 4, 2005,
Business & Media Institute study about Fannie Mae media coverage entitled Government-Sponsored
Enron [1]. That analysis found broadcast news covered the
Enron debacle far more than the crisis at the mortgage leader, even
though Fannie Maes accounting problems were 19 times the amount of
Enrons. Fannie Mae, a Government-Sponsored Entity, has a special
congressional charter, special tax breaks and an implied
taxpayer-funded bailout if things go wrong.

In fact, the networks are still discussing Enron far
more than Fannie Mae. The Enron fiasco has become network shorthand
for business corruption, cropping up at least 33 times in six
months.

Enron has been linked consistently with every kind of
corporate misconduct. New York Times reporter Judith Miller went
even further on the July 6 Good Morning America, saying, From
Watergate to the financial scandals of Enron, to the abuses that
took place in Abu Ghraib prison, all of these stories required
confidential sources. The August 3 CBS Morning News also told
viewers of another settlement for investors burned by the Enron
collapse. None of these stories discussed the more current and
more expensive catastrophe of Fannie Mae.

Unlike the broadcast networks, both Fox News and CNN
acknowledged the Fannie Mae problem. Fox was the only network to do
a complete story on the issue. CNN addressed the topic twice, once
in a brief about Greenspans criticism of the company. The other
time was in a June 15 Judy Woodruffs Inside Politics story about
the revolving door between key White House jobs and big business.
Rather than use that opportunity to point to the huge controversy at
Fannie Mae, where several key Clinton staffers once found a home,
reporters Suzanne Malveaux and Dana Bash downplayed that and
highlighted problems for Bush.

Malveaux simply said, Clinton budget director Franklin
Raines left the White House for Fannie Mae, a private mortgage giant
backed by the government. According to the October 5 Washington
Post, Raines and former chief financial officer J. Timothy Howard
are being sued by Fannie Mae shareholders after they were forced
from Fannie Mae last year amid allegations that they flouted
accounting rules to boost earnings, which in turn triggered millions
of dollars in bonuses for themselves and other top executives.

However, the reporters didnt mention that. Instead,
Bash followed Malveauxs mention of Raines with this: But energy
ties of Mr. Bush and of the vice president has created a perception
problem from day one here about the presidents environmental
policy.

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